Dawning
by hexterah
Summary: Jacen and the gang give Tenel Ka a gift from the past at her wedding and she realizes what a big mistake she's making. One-poster/short story. Written: 11/08/06


**Author's Note: **Yeah... I don't remember where I got this idea. But I had it for so long that I finally sat down and scrawled it out. I didn't want it to be any longer than it was -- I just wanted it to kind of be like "WHOOPS MY BAD" on TK's part in a snap decision. So here it is. Written: 11/08/2006.

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**Dawning**

_Jacen could see her trying to fight the smile off of her face. _

_As they all spun and moved around the fire, he watched her cheekbones twitch, her eyes narrow. The music grew louder, the drums so heavy that Jacen could feel the beat reverberating below his feet. His spins brought him straight up to Zekk, who had been mirroring Jacen's actions from the other side of the fire perfectly. They laughed in each other's faces, cheeks rosy red, beads of sweat appearing on their foreheads. Left hand to right, they grabbed each other's wrists and turned quickly, switching spots. Jaina had Tenel Ka had done the same. Now he was closer to _her_._

_They picked up the tribe's dance in no time._

_All of them had grown older and they had graduated from the Academy on Yavin 4. They were traveling together, visiting different worlds under no immediate threat, learning about different cultures and different customs and places. _

_He saw Zekk and Raynar around the other side of the fire, doing some of the particularly more difficult acrobatic moves of the dance, while Jaina was dancing with Lowbacca. Jacen turned his eyes back ahead of him and grabbed Tenel Ka's right hand, pulling her towards him before lifting the arm up over her head and spinning her under it._

_She let the smile dawn on her lips now._

"Come on, Jacen! It's a wedding! Be happy!" Tahiri kicked him under the table, causing him to flinch. His back was to the main table across the front of the chamber, his head down, eyes locked on the fork he was currently trying to balance on the pristine pearl-colored tablecloth.

His concentration on the utensil allowed Jaina to properly elbow Tahiri in the arm without him noticing. A motion to get her to stop. Tahiri had known how Jacen always felt about Tenel Ka, but with him being on his Force-filled prophetic journey, Tahiri had figured the feelings had died out, or that he had given up. She scowled and sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. Zekk had taken that chance to lean over to Jaina and hiss a few things in her ear, which her eyes lit up at.

"Hey, Jacen," Jaina leaned forward, propping her elbows up on the table.

His eyes drifted upwards towards hers, his head still staying in the same position. Strands of thick brown hair dug into his field of vision, but it didn't seem to faze him as he waited for his sister to continue. He lazily noted that Zekk was furiously punching things into a datapad beside her and inwardly sighed at the fact that the two seemed to have some genius plan for something.

"What do you say we give Tenel Ka a _dance_ for her wedding?"

"Huh?" The fork fell as Jacen responded, a clang resounding up and down their table, killing the chatter for a moment.

"The Matriatee dance we learned, on Dandalas, remember?"

Jacen didn't respond at first, his eyes moved back to Zekk, who was now explaining something to Lowbacca and Raynar, who sat beside him and across from him, respectively. "Are you serious?!" He heard Raynar's voice crack in disbelief. Jacen assumed Zekk was asking them about the dance too. "Force knows if I can remember the whole thing, man. It's been _years_."

He looked back to Jaina.

"Come on," her voice had taken that tone. The one he only heard when she was trying to get him to do something -- it was also the tone that meant "if you don't do this, I'll beat you up" -- "It'll be fun."

"The band doesn't have the music," Jacen responded with his weak excuse flatly, before letting his hands shift back to the fork on the table in front of him.

Zekk held up his datapad, "Got it right here. Sorry excuse, Solo." Lowbacca growled an agreement, the wookiee suddenly excited by the idea Zekk had thrown at him.

He hadn't agreed to it, but Jaina was already on her feet, shuffling around the table and preparing to head towards the group of Hapans huddled near the band. The ones making sure everything went how it was supposed to go. "It'll make her happy, Jacen," she said this as she passed him and skittered off, heels clicking on the ground.

Lowbacca and Zekk stood, as did Raynar, and as Zekk rounded the table, he leaned down and clapped Jacen on the shoulder, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It'll make her remember."

As they passed him, he felt himself gulp. Sure, it might make her remember, but was that what they really wanted? He knew he had already caused her enough grief by vanishing off across the galaxy, not to mention before that, when he was always too oblivious to her hints or too nervous to do anything about them. He didn't want those feelings to resurface in her, for fear of her realizing how much he hurt her and not even wanting to be his friend anymore.

He could feel his mouth, which was hanging open, growing quite dry and with that he let the fork drop to the table once more, his eyes drifting to the table at the front. She looked like she wasn't even there, her gaze glazed over, rimmed in a simple gray eyeliner. His heart leapt at how beautiful she looked -- it dropped afterwards for her expression; absent and almost _mournful_. He wished at that moment that he knew what she was thinking.

...

_I am marrying for the wrong reasons._

She kept telling herself this as she prodded the twelve course meal spread out across the table in front of her. With the marriage, she knew the Lorell Raiders would cease their seemingly endless strings of assaults on thirty-nine of the sixty-three planets of Hapes. She also knew that men would get more of a say in things. And she was never one to think of herself, it was always her people. This was what was best for them.

She stared out to the in the chamber ahead of her. Hapan nobles littered each corner of the room, emissaries, ambassadors, delegates -- hundreds of planets, hundreds of people. Her eyes kept drifting back to the table near the dead center of the room, by the empty space that would later be used to dance. The table full of her friends.

They were shifting now, Jaina Solo standing and heading across the chamber, while a couple of the others stood and stretched, their joints most likely popping. She knew they had all been seated there for a good while. Letting her stormy gaze follow them over to the musicians, her back straightened a bit. Something was actually catching her attention for the first time that day.

Zekk was handing them a datapad, the crowd was stirring at an announcement Tenel Ka was too drowsy to pay attention to, Jacen and Raynar were approaching the middle of the floor. She heard the last part, which was the only part she needed to hear.

"... dedicated to the Queen Mother. We're hoping she enjoys it. We're hoping she remembers it too. Call it a random wedding gift from the Academy." With a chuckle, Jaina shuffled away from the band and up to her companions, all of whom were shifting into a rough circle.

Jacen inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. He could almost feel the fire on his back again. Once the music started, it all flooded back to him and he just began _moving_. Most of the guests in the chamber began clapping along with the tune, she didn't. Every time he turned and faced the table along the front, his eyes went straight to her -- and she just sat there, lips pursed, staring.

There were cheers from the crowd now; Lowbacca and Zekk were most likely throwing each other around in the moves that Jacen never learned. He had been too focused on her that night to learn anymore than he did -- pretty much like he was at this point -- focused on her. Throwing himself into a spin, he came out of it facing the center of the circle -- they all did. The music seemed to get louder as they seemed to feed off of one another; Zekk cackling madly while he and Jacen and Raynar slightly mixed up some of the footwork, Lowbacca grabbing Jaina's hand and spinning her around a few times. He could almost see the fire in the center; the only thing missing was Tenel Ka hiding a smile from him behind it.

Halting, the music ended on a high note, the five people who had been dancing to it stopping with it, right on cue. They all even remembered how to finish correctly, arms raised and feet together -- Zekk almost tripped but besides that, Jacen thought they did a good job. He actually felt the ghost of a grin drift over his lips.

And as they finished their posing and waving to the crowds of holoreporters and such, they all faced the raised platform at the head of the room. She sat behind the table, smiling that smile that she _always_ and _only_ reserved for him. Jacen felt a hybrid pang of guilt and triumph as he stared to her, triumph because he had executed the dance just has it was taught to them years ago, guilt because he knew how Tenel Ka was feeling. He felt it too. There was something else threaded into his whirlwind of emotions -- _longing_.

She could only repeat one thing over and over in her head. And he could faintly hear it -- although he told himself it was only wishful thinking.

_I am marrying the wrong man._


End file.
